Can a cannabis farm lower the housing prices in an area?

Residents of Flinton, Ontario, were stunned to find a cannabis farm in their municipality, which was instantly accused of lowering housing prices in that area.

Marlean Mclean moved out to Flinton in order to get away from the noise of the city and to enjoy nature in her new small town. Now she won’t be able to do so because a cannabis farm is disturbing her peace.

She owns a property near the cannabis farm, which just recently came to light as the municipal officials didn’t know about the farm until a few days ago.

Marlean claims that, since the reveal of the farm, the housing value in their area dropped, and people don’t want to live there anymore because now there’s a cannabis farm a few lots down the road.

Flinton is a very small town north of Napanee, and it has only 250 residents. It was founded by Billa Flint, the owner of the local mill who built the town to house his employees.

Ontario Provincial Police said that the farm has been licensed by Health Canada, even though the local municipality didn’t know anything about it until Tuesday.

“I don’t think people move back here even considering — ‘Oh my neighbour down the road is going to have a grow-op’ — either legal or illegal. It decreases property value,” said Mclean visibly frustrated.

Municipal officials apparently don’t know the name of the company, how long it’s been running or when it was licensed, even though Health Canada was supposed to notify them in due time.

Health Canada instructs all farms and greenhouse operations to abide by the municipal laws, and according to the officials, the property hasn’t been rezoned for commercial use.

The village reeve, Henry Hogg, said he was surprised that the municipality wasn’t notified of the mystery cannabis operation and believes the situation was poorly managed by the federal government.

Related

Housing value dropping near cannabis farms?

During the interview, Mclean said that the farm decreases the housing value simply by being there. However, that doesn’t seem to add up on the economy side of things…

If nothing else, a farm in a rural town should raise the housing value in the area for several reasons.

Firstly, housing value didn’t drop from the moment the cannabis farm was found out to now. For what its worth, it may just do the exact opposite. Here’s why:

Cannabis farms have a good prospect for expansion, which means more jobs for the people in the area. So, for one, a farm should increase the number of jobs in the municipality.

Secondly, farms may be detrimental to air quality in most cases, but this isn’t one of those cases, and those are mostly meat-generating farms such as hog or poultry farms.

Cannabis farm is one of the rare farms that actually may improve air quality because the plants grown on this farm collect carbon-dioxide from the air and turn it to oxygen during photosynthesis.

Lastly, the farm will be contributing to the municipal budget from the sales of cannabis it grows and sells as a part of the Health Canada system, which should also increase the land value in the municipality, directly increasing housing value as well.